Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum

The National Village Museum of Bucharest is unanimously deemed by foreign tourists a sight not to be missed out, being rated one of the best and most complete museums in the country. Enjoying a virtually central location in Bucharest, the museum stands out in sharp relief as an oasis of tranquility, a dreamlike set seemingly clipped from a time immemorial rural legend.

This outdoor museum fills a surface of some 10 hectares, a park populated with examples of Romanian rural architecture. The park aims to provide a comprehensive picture of the architectural styles used in building the traditional rural homes throughout Romania, in sundry regions of the country (Moldavia, Oltenia, Transylvania, Banat, and Dobrogea, for instance). The houses aside, the patrimony of the museum is complemented by churches, outhouses and mills, such as to offer visitors a thorough picture of the Romanian traditional village life. The structures (depending on their type) are furnished with authentic items (old furniture, tapestries, tools and the like), such as to render as closely as possible the atmosphere of the rural life.

However, in order to keep true to this purpose, the structures were made of materials ascertained as traditional materials used in erecting the buildings by the peasants themselves in the course of history (clay, wood, thatch, and, less frequently, stone). The perishable nature of these materials is an inexhaustible source of challenge for the museum, which is faced with the situation of preserving the structures as such, without tampering with the genuineness of the peasant set by altering the raw material of which the exhibits were made.

On top of its unchallenged inner value, the museum is located just nearby the Herăstrău Park, one of the most beautifully landscaped public parks of Bucharest. The souvenir shop within the precincts of the museum, though deemed less valuable than its counterpart at the Museum of the Romanian Peasant, is, it too, well worth a visit.

As an interesting historical reference, the museum was, chronologically speaking, the third outdoor museum ever founded in Europe.